Have you ever wondered what it's like to be an English-speaking actor in Tokyo? Of course you have. Now, thanks to the Praxis Theatre blog, you can find out. This guest post by Benjamin Johnson describes some of the conditions that western performers would be likely to face should they decide to emigrate to Japan. According to Johnson: "the English-speaking actor in Tokyo is essentially a model paid to draw attention to products. Film and TV work is basically nonexistent, save for extra work and embarrassing guest appearances on variety shows ... [and] as far as I can tell there's not a single theatre job to be had for an English speaker in this town of 30 million people." It makes being an actor in the UK sound positively easy.

But let's head south now, from Tokyo to Australia, and join Alison Croggon. In recent months, Alison has been particularly concerned with the debacle surrounding an exhibition earlier this year by the Australian photographer Bill Henson. Henson caused a storm of controversy when he included in his exhibition some images of a nude 13-year-old girl. His work was confiscated by the police and he has become something of a national pariah. All this despite the fact that, on investigation, the New South Wales Department of Public Prosecutions recommended that no charges should be made and the Office of Film and Literature Classification declared the images "mild and justified" and gave them a PG rating.

What now worries Croggon is some proposed new legislation in response to all of this, aimed at protecting children from being indecently represented in the arts. It seems quite draconian in its scope, as it would cover not only photographic images, but the depiction of those under 18 in any medium – painting, performance, literature and so on. The problem, she says, "is what constitutes indecency: while in law such restrictions are clearly made to forbid pornography involving children, the inclusion of this clause in an arts protocol means that it can be more widely applied to include any literary depiction of the sexuality of anyone under 18. The conflation with pornography of - say - Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, or the beautiful and sensitive books of David Almond, draws ever closer." It is depressing when the vital need to protect children from exploitation develops into a hysteria that looks mistrustfully at any representation of them at all.

Speaking of how we represent different groups of people on stage, Isaac Butler on the Parabasis blog returns to the question of racial diversity in American theatre. In his latest post on this subject he speaks rather eloquently about why it is so important to him. He is responding to this discussion about the conflict between morality and self-interest in how we behave. This leads him on to a riff about how theatre is at its best when it exercises our capacity for empathy, and he concludes: "There is a way then, that the lack of diversity on our stages, and the lack of integration in our casts limits this enlargement of our humanity and capacity towards both empathy and sympathy by limiting who we see, by limiting who is allowed access to our sympathy, or what roles they have to play in order to get it. These issues of representation also lead to a kind of monolithic understanding of identity, where we see 'Black People' instead of the guy right in front of you."

Finally, Scott Walters is drawing attention to a fascinating discussion on Tony Adams' blog about why so much writing on theatre is dedicated to discussing the process of making drama – funding, diversity, admin – rather than the content of the work that is actually produced. It's well worth having a look at for the range of views on display. But for my money, the most persuasive argument comes from Paul Rekk who says it is because "fewer and fewer theatre practitioners are placing priority on content over business, both within their work and within their entire view of theatre as a form/industry". This is not, I think, because theatre people are all wannabe Gordon Geckos. Rather, it is because the scarcity of resources available to theatre-makers means that they are inevitably forced to spend most of their time focusing on the nuts-and-bolts issue of how they get their work on in the first place. And if there is little time to think about what it is that they are making, then there is even less time to discuss it with others.